


On the edge of infinity

by Mischieftess



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alien Invasion, F/F, Giant Robots, I just saw a rogue prompt, Mecha Au, Plot, now the prompt is in control, space, wtf even is this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:00:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24952687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mischieftess/pseuds/Mischieftess
Summary: Nicole’s just trying to do her job: pilot her mobile suit to keep the vicious Kraw away from the seven human colonies and the system’s one habitable planet. But fate has other plans, and she’s thrust into a role that she never intended to fill.
Relationships: Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 8
Kudos: 67





	1. Chapter 1

Nicole flipped her mobile suit up and over the Kraw’s chitinous back, slicing with her energy saber. Her screens showed the creature clearly in turquoise outlines, despite the absolute blackness of their immediate surroundings. The nearest star was over three light years away.

Her fingers danced in complex patterns over the inset joystick buttons to send plasma rounds from the head cannons into the spreading V of exposed flesh, carving through it to bounce off the inside of the exoskeleton and shred its insides.

The brrrr of the guns was transmitted through the metal despite the insulation of the cockpit, buzzing into Nicole's teeth. Nicole ground them together, the repetitive action stabbing pain up through her gums.

The ten grasping limbs, their claws glowing with heat comparable to her saber, spasmed and went limp, drifting in space. It bumped into another eviscerated corpse and they stuck together, spinning slowly in what would be an endless waltz. Endless until they got sucked into the gravity well of a nearby planet or star, that is, and that might take millions of years.

The Kraw were tough bastards, but once you got through their shell they went down quick. Nicole surveyed her screens. No purposeful movement detected, no energy signatures. She'd gotten them all.

_ 15 hours, sixteen Kraw, 47 eggs.  _ Nicole thought.  _ That'll put me up on the leaderboards. Won't make up for the lack of sleep, though. _

Nicole stretched as much as the cramped cockpit would allow and winced as she smelled her own stench. Space suits lean enough to fit inside a mobile suit cockpit were in short supply lately, especially because they were tailored for each pilot.

Additionally, they were difficult to clean and took forever to dry. Pilots were going out every day, and it was better to be in a stinky suit than a damp one any day. Her helmet was off, a relief for her head, but it allowed the air to circulate. Woof.

Nicole would have cleaned her suit on her day off, but this was supposed to  _ be _ her day off. She'd broken regs by going out this morning, but they didn't have enough pilots to keep the colony borders clear and the alert had come in while everyone was either deployed or asleep.

It hadn't taken much convincing to get Commander Dolls to let her back out here, though she'd had to take the stims he ordered. She had to admit, begrudgingly, that she'd needed them.

Nicole stepped on the pedal to the far right and pulled on the lever that released the rigid locks that kept her mobile suit in the bipedal fighting formation.

With a groan and the harsh clanks of huge metal parts reverberating down through its limbs into the air of her cockpit, Nicole’s mobile suit reconfigured itself into flight mode. Her screens lit up with the coordinates for home. 

Nicole blasted off, leaving the hulking corpses of alien bugs drifting in her wake. There'd be more tomorrow. There always were.

The trip back felt far, far longer than the trip out. Nicole was nodding in her seat, trusting the autopilot to do most of the work. Finally, she triggered the outpost’s proximity alert and roused to bring herself into port, clanking into the dock as neatly and carefully as she always did. The clamps set and she was home.

Nicole sighed, shifting in her padded cockpit seat as she flipped the three switches that would get her out of this stinking cave, . The pervasive hum of the air compressors stopped, replaced by the sharp hiss of the airlock seals opening. With a groan, the hydraulics kicked in.

They hesitated, straining, building pressure, then wrenched something that came away with a scream of metal. Nicole winced.

One of the Kraw had slashed her up good before she'd eviscerated it. The heat of its claws must have melted the metal over the access hatch.

"What the heck did you DO to it?" came a voice through the incompletely-open hatch. "That's gonna take a whole team to fix. You dumbbutt pilots!"

The voice was female, but Nicole didn't recognize it. The accent was slightly different as well, maybe from another colony?

_ Also,  _ Nicole thought, _ dumbbutt? Who calls someone a dumbbutt? _

Nicole heaved herself out of her chair, snagging her helmet as she bent over to peek out from behind the slow-moving leaves of thick armor as they unfurled to form a gangway. As soon as they cleared, she saw her.

This woman was tiny, dressed in a light blue jumpsuit smeared with dark streaks of grease. She stood with her arms crossed, hip cocked, and glared at Nicole. 

_ Wow, she's cute. I wonder where she came from. _

"Aren't you trained how to  _ dodge _ on this rock?" 

The woman had brown hair tucked up under a billed cap and Nicole could just see that her eyes were some light color, shaded as they were from the glare of the hangar lights. Her jawline was firm and a muscle bounced angrily in her cheek.

Nicole stepped out and straightened up, enjoying how she towered over the angry, cute grease monkey reading her the riot act. She felt some of her exhaustion fade at the edges. This could be fun.

"The Kraw are tough opponents, ma'am," Nicole drawled. "But maybe you could teach me some  _ evasive _ maneuvers, if you were so inclined?"

The mechanic's mouth opened, then closed. She blinked.

Nicole grinned. This was a good sign. She swaggered forward, ignoring the wobble in her legs as they held her up in artificial gravity for the first time in almost a day. If she didn't give them much attention, no one else would.

"I mean it. I'm sure we'd have a lot to teach each other." Nicole winked. 

"Uh, I'm ... I'm in a relationship. With a boy. A man."

Nicole stopped her slow approach, then nodded. "Ah, a boy-man. I've been there. It's the worst."

Nicole decided right then and there not to pursue this. Girls in relationships were trouble, and if she was from a different colony it'd be a political blunder as well. But it'd be nice if they could get along anyway.

"I'm sorry about the damage," Nicole said, meaning every word. "I try to get her through intact, but sometimes ..." 

Nicole turned to eye the damage from her spot on the gangplank and winced again.

Her mobile suit wasn't the prettiest. Her colony hadn't had the money to put into a fancy paint job, and the lines of its armored, humanoid form were more brutalist than some of the others she’d seen. But the massive streak of claws across the torso was new and fresh, even if it hadn't gone entirely through the armor plating.

It would take a lot of work to replace, and they'd have to recycle the armor into new plates for the next time it got scarred up. They didn't have the luxury of a lot of spare parts in this war.

"Hey, Waverly, I've gotta head out, there's an incursion–"

Another new voice. Nicole and the mechanic both turned to see a woman in a pilot's suit trot around the corner, helmet jouncing from her belt as she snapped an elastic band onto the end of a long, dark braid.

The woman stopped next to the mechanic and eyed Nicole, scorn shining from her light eyes. "Your mobile suit looks like shit."

Nicole rolled her eyes. How dare this fresh face judge someone who'd been on the front lines for as long as Nicole had. "Yeah, well, I bet yours will too after being stationed here on the Verge."

The woman snorted. "Whatever, believe that if it makes you feel better. C'mon, Waves, help me out?"

The mechanic, Waverly, gave one last look at Nicole and followed her. Nicole watched them go, still irritated. But then, her gaze was grabbed by something different. At the end of the hangar, a new mobile suit shone in bright silver, shiny and glinting even in the hangar's lights.

Even from this distance, Nicole could see the exquisite details, the elegance of the armored plating, the ruby accents and blue lines streaking its form. The thing was beautiful. The word PEACEMAKER was emblazoned down one arm.

"What the hell," Nicole said, realizing seeping into her. She recognized it, of course, but had never expected to see one. "That's a fucking Gundam!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Space still has bad TV dinners

Nicole chewed, and chewed, and chewed. The breakfast substitute was, in fact, the best thing on the fabricator menu. It was a menace to the jaw muscles, but the flavor was good if you could get past the texture. Not many did. That explained why at this hour it was the only thing left before the machines would be restocked at 4 am.

A sonic shower had washed away the worst of Nicole's day in the cockpit and at this point she was just cramming food in her mouth before bed, chewing mechanically to break the processed, nutrient-balanced meal up enough to swallow and get to bed. It was taking forever. Fortunately, Dolls's orders had been left on her personal screen and she'd be off tomorrow on account of sacrificing her personal time today. She could afford to get a few bunk hours in.

A rustle of fabric nearby heralded another person's arrival. Nicole kept her head down - no need to start a conversation she'd just fall asleep during. Footsteps hesitated in the doorway, then went to the bank of dispensers. The telltale, disappointed boop and refrain of, "I'm sorry, that selection is unavailable," sounded once, then twice, then again. A huff of frustration came from the hapless figure at the machines.

Nicole took pity on her poor, hungry companion. "D7," she said around a mouthful of food, then swallowed. "It's the only one stocked right now."

"Breakfast feast?" 

The woman's voice was familiar from that encounter an hour ago. Nicole sat back in her chair and turned slightly to get a look at her. Waverly was still in her greaser coveralls but her cap was gone, uncovering light brown hair that was gathered in a tidy braid. She was looking at Nicole. Her eyes were hazel, maybe.

"Yeah," Nicole said, shrugging. "Not too bad, if you like 20th century Earth standards."

"Hmm." Waverly turned back to the machine and punched it in.

Nicole turned back to her meal and cut up the last "sausage" patty. With a sigh, she got to chewing. The "pancakes" were less tasty, but they also required less chewing so she often left them ‘til last.

To Nicole's dull surprise, the other woman plunked her plate down across from her and slid onto the bench. Then she offered Nicole her hand.

"Hi, I'm Waverly Earp," she said.

Nicole shook her hand. Her grip was firm, her palm calloused, and faint grease marks still ran around her fingernails. 

"Nicole Haught," Nicole replied.

"I've gotta know, do you always flirt with women the first time you meet them?" Waverly asked, her eyes twinkling with what looked like humor. 

"Sorry about earlier, I should've asked if you were ok with it before I started in with the flirting." Nicole tapped her fork on the plate. "I won't do it again." She'd felt bad, afterward, for welcoming a new colleague with a blatant come-on. It was unprofessional.

Waverly brushed it off. "No harm done, but thank you for the apology. Sorry for being so hard on your piloting." She pushed the sausage to the side, placing it on a napkin.

"S'ok, no hard feelings. Not a fan of meat substitute?" Nicole asked. 

Waverly grimaced. "I was a vegetarian, growing up. I've never been a fan of meat flavor or texture."

A vegetarian? Texture? That implied she ate fresh vegetables, not frozen, dried, or nutrient-paste facsimiles, which meant...

"You grew up planetside?" Nicole asked, hearing the shock in her own voice. Grounders were rich, had to be, to live under the terraformed domes that protected them from the wasteland all around. 

The seven colonies scattered around the system mined ore and gas that largely went to colony needs, but the one habitable planet, Megra, had once held a hegemonic position over all of them. That had ended with the last human-human war, before the bugs came. Now they were all more or less on the same side.

Waverly paused in her attempts to cut into the pancakes, looking up to meet Nicole's eyes with her own. They were definitely hazel. Her eyelashes were dark and long, accentuating –

Nicole caught herself and looked away. _No, Nicole, do not be attracted to this woman. She’s out of bounds._

Waverly didn’t seem to notice Nicole’s internal self-chastisement. "Yeah. Long time ago, now."

This explained the Gundam. Gundanium alloy was damn hard to refine in space, even on a colony as large as Asteropia. But once you made a Gundam, it would withstand punishment that would destroy a lesser mobile suit. The system had had half a dozen, once, but due to the Colony Wars they'd been used as a major weapon of the ground against the colonies. They'd lost one by one to human error, the colonies' desperate efforts to assassinate their pilots and access the self-destruct function, and, lastly, the Triskelis Incident 15 years ago. Nicole hadn't thought any were left.

Waverly quirked an eyebrow as Nicole thought through all of this, finally saying, "Go ahead, ask. I know you want to."

Nicole finished chewing her last bite and pushed her plate forward, gesturing. "Here, in exchange for information, gimme your meat and you can have my pancakes."

Waverly forked over the stiff hunks of cooling "meat" with gratitude on her face. "Good trade."

"Sooooo," Nicole hemmed. "That was a pretty mobile suit."

Waverly snorted, starting in on her food. "Of course it's pretty. It's a Gundam. But you know that already."

Nicole shrugged. It was true. "Who's the rude pilot?"

"My sister, Wynonna." Waverly chewed mightily and swallowed. "Oh, that's not bad."

"Yeah it grows on you." Nicole stretched. "How'd y'all get a hold of a Gundam."

"State secret, I'm afraid," Waverly said with a cheeky wink.

Nicole couldn't resist smiling. Waverly's humor was infectious, lighting up the room. Nicole could see them becoming friends. _Nothing more than friends._ "And you came along for the ride?"

Waverly tilted her head and waggled a hand in a so-so gesture. "I qualified on Gundam maintenance after Wynonna, ah, became Peacemaker's pilot." 

There was a hesitation in the sentence that Nicole didn't push on. Better to not stretch her luck. Scuttlebutt would tell her more later.

Waverly continued. "And when she was voluntold to come out here, I put my chit in for the transfer. So, we came together. Gotta keep her out of trouble, you know."

Nicole studiously didn't ask about whether the boy-man had been brought along. Instead, she said, "Voluntold, eh? It’s happened to the best of us. Y'all stationed here for a while?"

"Yeah. It's the most active post in the system, and one Gundam pilot can do the work of three ordinary mobile suits." Responding, perhaps, to the look on Nicole's face, Waverly's eyes widened. "Sorry, no offense intended."

Nicole felt herself bristling and purposefully took a deep breath. Snapping at the brand new member of the outpost team for having pride in her sister wasn't appropriate, even if they’d lost half of their mobile suits – and their pilots – to Kraw incursions over the past year and a half. And Nicole certainly wouldn’t bring up Triskelis, though her parents certainly would have. Old wounds died hardest with the folks that had been intimately involved in the Wars, after all.

"Yeah," Nicole said. "It's fine." Abruptly, her curiosity was overtaken by exhaustion. "Uh, hey, sorry to end this here, but I've gotta get some sleep. It was nice meeting you again."

With that, Nicole gave her dining companion a nod and moved to get up.

A hand landed on her arm and Nicole froze.

Waverly said, "Hey, Nicole, thanks for the tip on dinner."

Nicole gave Waverly a tired smile. "You're welcome. And welcome to Telos Frontier Base. We need all the help we can get."

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize to anyone who's worked really hard to research and write a space epic. I am making this up from my bountiful experience of watching mecha animes as a teenager. Comments are love (and help me write faster)!
> 
> Find me on Twitter, if you want! [@SmugMischief](https://twitter.com/SmugMischief)


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